


Spring Thaw

by exbex



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser and Ray make it to the end of a very short quest and finish rebuilding Fraser's cabin.  Personal revelations abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mizface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/gifts).



> This story is also available as a podfic by the talented Lexigent
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/750510

It was well into spring when Fraser and Ray finally made it to the cabin. Misgivings were rapidly taking root within him. Fraser knew this but couldn’t seem to rationalize it away. It had been a long winter, culminating in a well-intentioned but disastrous quest. A small but growing part of him wanted to push a rewind button, tracking back from the quest, from Muldoon and a submarine, from Chicago, from Victoria…he stopped this mental musings when it occurred to him that there was only so far back he could go.

“So this is it, huh?” Fraser hadn’t even heard Ray until he was right beside him. He turned and blinked, taking in his partner’s faded jeans, heavy flannel jacket, three-days growth of beard, unkempt hair, and unusually still demeanor. He glanced back at the rudimentary, yet unfinished cabin before turning back to Ray, finding himself, unusually, at a loss for words.

Ray grinned. “Can’t be much different than a car.”

Fraser felt a knot somewhere deep inside of him slowly start to unravel.

***

Ray wouldn’t have thought that his life would eventually lead to jumping out of a plane into thirty feet of snow, then that whole submarine thing, then hopping onto a dogsled and mushing off into the great unknown. It wasn’t exactly what Ray had pictured for his great adventure. His long-ago daydreams hadn’t included pneumonia and a hospital stay.  
Nevertheless, Ray liked to think that, in an alternate universe somewhere, there was an alternate version of himself who had been able to live the last fifteen years where he was now, in the middle of the most beautiful place he’d ever seen, holding a hammer and listening to nothing but the rustling of leaves and the occasional bird. Maybe it was because he’d spent all those days laying in a hospital bed with tubes shoved into his lungs, but Ray was digging this a lot more than he would have thought possible. Once he would have figured there was no reason to live anywhere but Chicago, with all of the noise and lights and smells, but now, sitting on the roof of the small cabin and looking out at it all, he gets it now, what Fraser sees in it all, and he feels a crazy new sensation that he can’t quite name.

***

Fraser was having difficulty concentrating this time, and it was as unnerving as it was unusual. He had never before had to consider what he wanted out of his future. He had not had a choice during his growing up years, following his grandparents from one isolated area to another. Becoming a Mountie had not been a choice, or even a calling as much as it was simply following the one path that seemed laid out for him. Even moving to Chicago in no way resembled a choice. Trailing his father’s killers had been a duty, and exile had been the price he’d paid for maintaining the right.

Fraser sighed and stepped back from the wall of the cabin. Two years ago he had traveled here with Ray Vecchio and it had been a kind of healing for both of them. But now it seemed to open up wounds that he hadn’t known were there, much like a spring thaw cracking thick sheets of ice open on a wide expanse of lake.

***

They never got to that hand thing that Fraser told him about, which was probably just as well. It’s difficult to want to continue the great adventure when you’re shivering and wheezing and in excruciating pain. There had been a few days in the hospital of disappointment, but it gradually dawned on Ray that it wasn’t such a wash after all. The quest had been six weeks of traipsing across an empty, snowy landscape. With no distractions, there wasn’t much to do but think. Self-reflection wasn’t a strong point of his, and the last few years of going from one undercover gig to the next, pretending to be someone else, hadn’t left him time to develop the habit, not that he would have been inclined to do so. But spending the weeks out on the ice and then laying in a hospital bed allowed key realizations to set in.

a) He wasn’t in love with Stella anymore. She was still his Gold Coast girl. He still admired and respected the hell of out her and would kick anybody who tried to hurt her in the head, but he wasn’t in love with her anymore.

b) He was a damn good cop and he was just going to have to make peace with the fact that his dad would probably never fully accept it.

c) The best thing in his life was the guy who was keeping vigil next to his hospital bed, and he was more than okay with that.

It should freak him out, make him nervous and fidgety and excited and horny and anything but calm. It was odd. Patience had never exactly been one of his qualities, but he was gaining some, watching Fraser. Of course, he felt as if he was seeing Fraser for the first time. This guy was different from the poised, impeccable Mountie Ray had met in Chicago. This guy’s hair was getting kind of long. Some stubble was covering his face, he was wearing a ratty flannel shirt and jeans with a rip or two. The real change was the eyes. Fraser’s eyes had always been like ice of a sort, blue and clear, pretty, not cold but cool, very clear and still, and, as Ray was now realizing, covering what was really going on beneath the surface, like the ice covering a river or stream that thaws out in the spring and starts rushing. Ray was starting to see what was going on behind those eyes, and whether it was because he was paying more attention or because Fraser’s careful front was beginning to waver, didn’t much matter to Ray.

***

Ray was sprawled out on his back in front of the campfire while Fraser sat, shoulders straight, legs slightly bent, staring at the flames. “How are you feeling, Ray?” He turned his head slightly to look at Ray, who rolled toward him, the light hitting his eyes and honest face. “Greatness, Benton Buddy. I can breathe, feel all my fingers and toes, and that roof is right where it’s supposed to be.” Ray rolled back onto his back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Did you know there were stars up there? Can’t remember the last time I really saw ‘em, y’know?”

“I do know, Ray.” Fraser continued looking into the fire. “I’m sorry that things didn’t work out, with the quest, I mean.”

“Don’t sweat it, Frase. We’re here. Besides, it’s not as if things always turn out like we planned, right?”

“Correct, Ray.” Fraser stifled a sigh. “And sometimes they do,” he said wistfully.

“Well you know what they say, Frase. Expect the unexpected,” Ray said obscurely before getting up off the ground and retreating inside the cabin.

***

“Go ahead and say it, Fraser.”

“Say what, Ray?” Fraser was staring at the finally finished cabin. His hands were sore, his feet tired, his muscles strained. It was a feeling of completion that he usually relished, but it wasn’t enough, this time, to quiet his mind and the uncertainties that continued to fester.

“Say ‘Ray, my friend, we have finished building the finest cabin this side of the Yukon.’”  
Fraser felt a smile play at the corner of his mouth. He looked at Ray. If there was one thing that he was certain about, the best thing in his life was the man who was standing next to him right now, taking in the results of their hard work, and this realization frightened him with its threat to send feeling rushing like a river.

“We have, Ray. We have.”

Ray clapped him on the back and grinned. “So, how we going to christen this place?”

Fraser’s mind when to various places at the question, and, rather appallingly, he thought, settled briefly on a graphic image. He blushed, blinked, and felt his hand involuntarily reaching up to rub his eyebrow. Ray, however, seemed not to have noticed. “Well, I vote for using the indoor plumbing. Mind if I hit the shower?”

“No, of course not. Help yourself Ray.” Fraser sighed with relief, or perhaps, he noticed with slight trepidation, disappointment.

***

Fraser built a fire in the woodstove and sat down next to Ray in one of the chairs facing the window. Ray sat, still except for his slow stroking of Diefenbaker, who lay curled next to him. It was the quietest Fraser had ever seen him. Ray was usually all frenetic energy, whether he was happy, angry, or even morose. It was something that Fraser had come to relish about his partner. It had made the chaos of Chicago seem more like the rhythms of music. Fraser envied this peaceful version of Ray as much as he appreciated it; it puzzled him that the Territories could have such an effect on Ray and yet only leave himself confused and indecisive, something that hadn’t happened to him out here since Victoria.

“Ray, have you decided what you’ll be doing?”

Ray raised an eyebrow. “You mean go back to Chicago or hang around up here.” It wasn’t a question.

“I do.”

Ray shrugged. “Nah. You?”

Fraser rubbed his eyebrow. “I confess that I haven’t entirely…that is, I…I have no idea,” he finally admitted.

“There’s something Benton Fraser hasn’t figured out? Stop; I gotta write this down.” Ray’s teasing was entirely good-natured, Fraser knew, but his words served to increase Fraser’s apprehension. Had Ray told him what he expected to hear, that he was returning to Chicago soon, perhaps it would have decided things for him, firmly closing a door on possibilities that were frightening in their hopefulness.

“Well, when you do figure it out, you go after it.” Ray paused. “Night, buddy.”

Fraser stared into the flames through the small glass window of the stove, lost in thought.

***

Fraser woke up the next morning later than he was accustomed to. He walked outside to find Ray bent over a small campfire, stirring coffee in a pot. Ray glanced up and grinned. “Morning, Fraser. Too bad we didn’t get around to hooking up the gas, eh?”

“You know, Ray, it’s possible to cook over the wood-burning stove.”

“Not as fun as over the open fire,” Ray said decisively as he poured coffee into a tin cup. Ray straightened and walked over to the front steps to sit beside Fraser on the wooden bench. They sat in silence for several minutes. “I’m going back to Chicago,” Ray said quietly. “I thought about it for a while last night. Turns out I don’t hate being a cop so much.”

“Of course, Ray.” Fraser stared ahead for several long moments, feeling the knot inside of him unraveling entirely. “Ray?

“Yeah Fraser.” It wasn’t a question.

***

It was slow, a hell of a lot slower than it was with Stella, perhaps the slowest kiss in the history of the universe, Ray figured. This was probably more patience than he’d ever experienced in his life.  
Fraser was sitting there, leaning toward him, his hair wild and messed up, his flannel shirt untucked, morning stubble on his face, the ice in his eyes now totally melted. Ray took the initiative, pulling him closer, pressing their lips together and slowly…asking…parting Fraser’s lips so their tongues could meet. When they finally pulled away, Fraser looked contemplative. “You wanna go in Frase?”

“No,” Fraser said decisively. He grabbed Ray’s hands and almost pulled him off the porch and to the soft grass by the fire. He turned to face Ray and almost hesitatingly slid his fingers into Ray’s hair and then slid them down to his shoulders, very gently pushing Ray to the ground.

“Didn’t know you liked it al fresco,” Ray said, his breathing now quickened.

“Not until now,” Fraser murmured before leaning over to kiss Ray again.

Ray briefly wished that clothes could dissolve. They paused to shrug out of their shirts and impatiently push their shoes and pants off. He shivered in the cool morning air. Fraser lay against him, then stilled, breathing hard against Ray’s shoulder, skin on skin as if something might break if he moved. Ray put his arms around Fraser and rubbed down his shoulders and back. Finally they moved, Ray pushing his hips up to meet Fraser’s thrusts. It was crazy; all the same sounds were around him, the noises of birds and the rustling of leaves, but it seemed like there should be fireworks going off, something to match the thump of his heartbeat. Ray just closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into Fraser’s skin.

***

They were a mess, of dirt and grass and ejaculate, but Fraser took a moment to appreciate the scents, the feel of Ray’s body, his taut muscles and smooth skin. He rolled off, looking up at the clear sky and feeling, finally, at peace.

Ray’s fingers laced with his own. “You figure it out, then?” His voice was relaxed and sated.

“Yes. If you’ll have me.”

Fraser could hear the smirk in Ray’s voice. “Think I just did. ‘Course, I could get used to it.”

Fraser gave Ray’s hand a squeeze. “It’s not really for me, Ray; Diefenbaker would miss the pizza.”

Ray rewarded him with an elbow in the side. “Freak.”

***

Fraser closed the door of the cabin, giving everything one final look, knowing that he would return in a future that was now more certain. He glanced around. “We’re leaving,” he said loudly, “we won’t be returning for some time.”

Ray laughed, blue eyes gleaming. “Thought Dief had to read lips Frase.” There was a knowing look in his eyes.

Fraser grinned. “Well Ray, things aren’t always as they appear,” he said as Diefenbaker came bounding out of the grove of trees.

Ray shook his head. “C’mon you two; let’s go home.”


End file.
